I can really relate a lot to the constant relapses and struggling to stay sober. It's hard. I'm lucky I eventually got the help I need to stay sober. What was that help? Good psychiatric care.

I'm in AA and am trying to work the 12 steps so I'll admit my bias up front, but I recognize they're not for everyone and I know people who are in very successful recovery without AA. But I know it's not for everyone.

I went to two rehabs. One was at an internationally known, highly respected rehab facility. It was also strictly a 12 step based program. I had a horrible experience there, as I was dealing with other mental health issues at the time, and they were lousy, hell they'd barely admit to the existance of concurrent disorders. I relapased hard after getting out of there, and my drinking really spiralled out of control, landing me in the hospital.

I then went to a much less well known day treatment program in a local hospital. It saved my life. It was not based on the 12 steps - it took a combination biological, psycho / social model of addiction. It also had a concurrent disorders program. They were willing to work with me on my addiction and my mental health.

I believe you have to treat both concurrently to have any success.

That program wasn't enough, on it's own, I needed more serious psych help, so I went inpatient to a psych hospital for 7 weeks. That allowed me to stabalize my meds and with lots of group therapy get help for my depression, which by that point was psychotic. Without that treatment, there's no way I'd be sober today.

As someone else has already suggested seak treatment for your OCD and start therapy to deal with all of the emotions that you're no doubt carrying around from your parents's death and conflict with your sister. You need to work on healing yourself as well as staying sober.

I go to AA now, because it gives me a safe place to socialize and lots of support for staying sober. I still struggle a bit with the God concept, but I don't let it get in the way for me.

Another on-line resource that you might want to check out is smartrecovery.org. It's a site, much like PC, only dedicated to addictions recovery. It's very similar to CBT in it's orientation. I've used some of their materials and found them helpful.

Good luck. Getting and staying sober is really hard, but it's so worthwhile.

--splitimage